Category Archives: Whistleblower

1 Person a Year Ago, Lead to Panama Papers, Ripple Effect

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What banks aided in the accounts of the global elites to hide their wealth? Did our own governmental financial gurus know about this? Well yes. Encryption was also used. Ahem….
Ah yeah sure —>>  WSJ: The U.S. Justice Department said Monday it is reviewing documents published by international media outlets to see if the papers constitute evidence of corruption that could be prosecuted in the U.S. Also Monday, French prosecutors opened an investigation into whether French nationals or financial institutions have used Panama to evade taxes.
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IndiaExpress: Two global companies were under mounting pressure, and threats were flying. For years, the Swiss banking giant UBS and a Panama law firm named Mossack Fonseca embraced each other in a mutually profitable relationship. UBS had customers who wanted offshore shell companies to keep their finances hidden. And Mossack Fonseca, one of the largest creators of offshore companies in the world, was happy to sell them.
Oh, ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak’s son is on the investigation list.
AhramOnline: Mubarak’s eldest son Alaa was revealed to be involved in dealing with Mossack Fonseca through his British Virgin Islands firm Pan World Investments Inc., which is managed by Credit Suisse. Alaa and Gamal were released from prison in January 2015 after serving the maximum pre-trial detention period of 18 months.Their release decision overturned a lower court conviction that saw the pair given four-year jail sentences and a three-year sentence for the elder Mubarak. They were charged with embezzling public funds earmarked for the renovation of presidential palaces and using the money to spruce up private properties. A Cairo court dropped other graft charges against the two sons in late 2014. More here.

OneIndia: New Delhi, April 5:The Panama Papers leak, claimed by many as the “world’s biggest”, has created ripples across the world, upsetting the rich and mighty with accounts in tax havens. But there is confusion about who actually leaked the papers.The leak turned out to be a Monday mayhem for around 214,000 hidden offshore companies after a group of global journalists, International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), got hold of the papers of the practically unknown law firm Mossack Fonseca based in Panama.
So who leaked the ‘Panama Papers’ — a collection of over 2,600 GB of data comprising more than 11 million documents?According to reports, over a year ago, an anonymous source contacted German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) and submitted encrypted internal documents from Mossack Fonseca, detailing how the firm set up and sold anonymous offshore companies around the world.In the months that followed, the number of documents continued to grow far beyond the original leak.Ultimately, Süddeutsche Zeitung acquired about 2.6 terabytes, or 2,600 GB, of data –making the leak the biggest that journalists had ever worked with.The source, who contacted the German newspaper’s reporter, Bastian Oberway, via encrypted chat wanted neither financial compensation nor anything else in return, apart from a few security measures, the daily said on its website.
After getting their hands on the data, the Süddeutsche Zeitung decided to analyse the data in cooperation with the ICIJ as the consortium had already coordinated the research for past projects that the daily was also involved in.In the past 12 months, around 400 journalists from more than 100 media organisations in over 80 countries have taken part in researching the documents. The team included journalists from the Guardian and the BBC in England, Le Monde in France, La Nación in Argentina and The Indian Express in India.In Germany, Suddeutsche Zeitung journalists cooperated with their colleagues from two public broadcasters, NDR and WDR. Journalists from the Swiss Sonntagszeitung and the Austrian weekly Falter have also worked on the project, as have their colleagues at ORF, Austria’s national public broadcaster.The international team initially met in Washington, Munich, Lillehammer and London to map out the research process.

China would rather its citizens didn’t talk too much about the Panama Papers.

CNN: A coalition of news organizations has seized global attention with a barrage of reports based on a massive document leak from a law firm in Panama. The reports, which CNN hasn’t been able to independently verify, allege top officials and people connected to them around the world hid wealth through secret offshore companies.

China’s online censors are restricting many search results and discussions on social media involving the terms “Panama Papers” and “Panama.” They’re also censoring use of the names of relatives of current and former Chinese leaders — including President Xi Jinping — that are mentioned in the reports.

At a news briefing Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei declined to comment in response to repeated questions about the reports, which he described as “pulled out of nowhere.”

It’s not against the law to have offshore financial holdings, and the leaked documents don’t necessarily indicate illegal activity. But the personal finances of Chinese leaders and their family members is a hugely sensitive issue for the ruling Communist Party, which is in the midst of a sweeping anti-corruption campaign led by Xi. More here.

 

 

Guccifer Appears in U.S. Court, Remember Hillary and Sid

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Are we to make anything of the timing of this court appearance? We cant get our hopes up but this is for sure curious.

The grand jury indictment full text is here.

Romanian Hacker “Guccifer” Appears in U.S. Court

SecurityWeek: Lazar Lehel, the 44-year-old Romanian national accused of hacking into the online accounts of many public figures, has been extradited to the United States where he made his first court appearance last week.

Romania’s High Court of Cassation and Justice agreed to extradite Lehel, known online as Guccifer, to the United States for a period of 18 months. U.S. authorities said the man hacked into the email and social media accounts of two former presidents, a former cabinet member, a former presidential advisor, and a former member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff between December 2012 and January 2014. The indictment does not name any of the victims and refers to them as “victim” 1 through 5.

The hacker has been accused of releasing private emails, personal photographs, and medical and financial information belonging to his victims.

Lehel has been charged in the United States with three counts of wire fraud, three counts of gaining unauthorized access to a protected computer, cyber stalking, aggravated identity theft, and obstruction of justice. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Virginia said the man faces up to 20 years in prison, with a two-year mandatory minimum for the identity theft charges.

In an interview last year with a Romanian journalist, Lehel said that if he is extradited to the United States, he will “plead guilty, no problem.”

During the time he was active, Guccifer also hacked into the accounts of various actors, journalists and businessmen, but the charges filed by U.S. authorities appear to focus on the attacks targeting officials.

Lehel was arrested by Romanian authorities in January 2014 after hacking into the email accounts of Romanian politician Corina Cretu and George Maior, the head of the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI). He was sentenced by a Romanian court to seven years in prison for these attacks.

The hacker had been known by Romanian law enforcement as “Little Fume.” He had previously received a three-year suspended sentence for hacking into the accounts of many Romanian celebrities.

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2013, Daily News:

Online hacker ‘Guccifer’ breaks into email accounts of former Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal

Guccifer got into the email account of Sidney Blumethal, a former aide to Bill Clinton and a senior adviser to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. The attack comes just days after breaking into Colin Powell’s Facebook account.

He’s a real political hack, all right.

The online prankster known as “Guccifer” has crossed party lines and hacked the AOL account of a former Bill Clinton aide — just days after the cyber creep breached former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s Facebook and email accounts.

“Guccifer” had seemed to be targeting the GOP before his latest round of online assaults — he’d spent recent weeks hacking into the emails of George W. Bush’s family and friends.

But last week “Guccifer” got into former Clinton aide Sidney Blumethal’s email account, according to thesmokinggun.com.

Blumenthal, 64, worked as an assistant and senior adviser to Clinton during the President’s second term.

He was also a senior adviser to Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign and has stayed close with her since.

“Guccifer” accessed Blumenthal’s correspondence with Clinton dating back to 2005, including sensitive foreign policy and intelligence memos shared while Clinton was secretary of state in the Obama administration, according to thesmokinggun. The hacker sent screen grabs of the sensitive Clinton emails — stamped with his “Guccifer” logo — to the website, it reported.

His cyber assault on the high-profile Democrat came just a few days after “Guccifer” defaced Powell’s Facebook page.

“Guccifer” hacked in Monday morning and uploaded messages berating former President George W. Bush.

“You will burn in hell, Bush!” read one post.

“Kill the illuminati! Tomorrow’s world will be a world free of illuminati or will be no more!” he wrote in another.

Powell later apologized on his Facebook page for “all the stupid, obscene posts that are popping up.”

 

More Details on Panama Papers and Implications

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Fusion: It’s being called the “Panama Papers” — a trove of 11.5 million leaked internal documents from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, showing how hundreds of thousands of people with money to hide used anonymous shell corporations across the world. Fusion’s investigative unit was one of the more than 100 media organizations that dove into the files — and found drug dealers, arms traders, human traffickers, fraudsters. We also found no shortage of politicians or their family members.

Here is a listing of current and former world leaders connected to the files. Check out Dirty Little Secrets, Fusion’s full investigation into the leak and the underworld it exposes.

For additional information on these names and more, read “The Power Players,” an interactive presentation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), from which much of this information is gleaned.

MAURICIO MACRI


President of Argentina
Macri — who as president has vowed to fight corruption — is listed, with his Italian tycoon father Francisco and brother Mariano, as a director of Fleg Trading Ltd., incorporated in the Bahamas in 1998 and dissolved in January 2009 — a financial connection Macri didn’t disclose on asset declarations when he was mayor of Buenos Aires. His spokesman said didn’t list Fleg Trading Ltd. as an asset because he had no capital participation in the company. The company, used to participate in interests in Brazil, was related to the family business group. “This is why Maricio Macri was occasionally  its director,” he said, reiterating that Macri was not a shareholder.

AYAD ALLAWI


Former Iraqi PM

A wealthy Iraqi exile who helped lead the push for war with Saddam Hussein, Allawi returned to Iraq to serve as prime minister in 2004. He also served as vice president s recently as last year. From 1985 to 2013, Mossack Fonseca helped run his Panama-registered company I.M.F. Holdings Inc. I.M.F. owned a house in Kingston upon Thames, England worth roughly $1.5 million, and another offshore company of his, Moonlight Estates Ltd., held a property in London. Representatives for Allawi confirmed that he “is the sole director and shareholder of Foxwood Estates Limited, Moonlight Estates Limited and IMF Holdings Inc.,” adding that he ran many of his house purchases through anonymous offshores “in light of an assassination attempt on him.” Indeed, he survived an attempt on his life in 1978, presumably by Saddam Hussein.

SIGMUNDUR DAVID GUNNLAUGSSON


PM of Iceland

A radio personality who led the Progressive Party to victory after the financial crisis of 2008, Gunnlaugsson and his wealthy wife owned a British Virgin Islands shell company called Wintris Inc., that held nearly $4 million in bonds in Iceland’s three major banks. He failed to declare his ownership of Wintris on entering the Parliament in 2009. In March, a TV interviewer asked Gunnlaugsson if he had ever owned an offshore company. “Myself? No,” he said, adding: “Well, the Icelandic companies I have worked with had connections with offshore companies.” A spokesman told the ICIJ that Gunnlaugsson and his family had followed all Icelandic laws.

KING SALMAN BIN ABDULAZIZ BIN ABDULRAHMAN AL SAUD


King of Saudi Arabia

Through a series of British Virgin Islands shell companies, the Saudi king appears to have taken out several luxury mortgages for houses in London — at least $34 million worth — and held “a luxury yacht the length of a football field.” The king did not answer the ICIJ’s requests for comment.

PETRO POROSHENKO


President of Ukraine

Known as Ukraine’s billionaire “chocoloate king,” Poroshenko swept into office in 2014 vowing reforms that have not yet come. He became the sole shareholder of Prime Asset Partners Limited in 2014, as Russian troops invaded Eastern Ukraine. The following year, Poroshenko vowed to sell most of his assets; news reports said they ultimately ended up in “Prime Asset Capital.” His  spokesman told the ICIJ said that “creation of the trust and related corporate structures had no relation to political and military events in Ukraine,” adding that his assets held by an independently managed fund — Prime Asset Capital.

RAMI AND HAFEZ MAKHLOUF

 
Cousins of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad

“For years, any foreign company seeking to do business in Syria had to be cleared by Rami, who controlled key economic sectors such as oil and telecommunications. Hafez, a general in charge of Syria’s intelligence and security apparatus, has been suspected of helping his older brother intimidate business rivals.” The cousins have been subjected to international financial sanctions and appear to have used multiple offshore accounts to siphon wealth from Syrian industry and avoid freezes on their assets. In early 2011, emails show employees at Mossack Fonseca discussing U.S. sanctions and allegations of bribery and corruption made against members of the Makhlouf family. By that June, Mossack had cut its ties with the Makhloufs.

KOJO ANNAN


Son of ex-U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan

Then only son of former U.N. head Kofi Annan courted controversy in 1998, when a firm of his won a big contract under the U.N.’s Oil-for-Food humanitarian program in Iraq. An inquiry eventually cleared father and son of any corruption in the deal. Internal Mossack Fonseca documents show Koji Annan has held several offshore shell companies, using one to purchase a half-million-dollar apartment in central London. A spokesman for Annan said his business was for “normal, legal purposes of managing family and business matters and has been fully disclosed in accordance with applicable laws.”

FAMILY OF NAWAZ SHARIF


PM of Pakistan

For years, Sharif, a longtime presence in Pakistani politics, has had to answer questions about his family’s “riches from a network of businesses that include steel, sugar and paper mills and extensive international property holdings,” ICIJ says. Mossacks’ documents show a series of offshore companies operated by Sharif’s children, Mariam, Hussein and Hasan, including one to hold “a UK property each for use by the family” and others that moved million in assets. Mossack Fonseca resigned from a company Hasan directed in 2007, calling him “a politically exposed person.” The Sharif family did not respond to the ICIJ’s requests for comment.

ARKADY AND BORIS ROTENBERG


Lifelong friends of Russian President Vladimir Putin

The billionaire brothers grew up with Putin and have benefited richly from his turns as Russia’s president and prime minister. The U.S. has sanctioned their wealth over alleged corruption, particularly allegations they profited over contracts from the 2014 Sochi Olympics. They ran at least seven British Virgin Islands shell companies “involved in everything from investing in a major pipeline construction company… to buying equipment for the construction of an Italian villa in Tuscany for Arkady’s son.”

SERGEY ROLDUGIN


Close persona friend of Putin

Widely known as one of the world’s better cellists, Roldugin has been close to Putin since the 1970s, when the future president worked in the Soviet KGB. Documents show Roldugin owned three shell companies, two of which were funded by a Russian organ that the U.S. government calls “Russia’s ‘personal bank for senior officials.’” Through those companies, Roldugin appears to hold significant shares of Kamaz, Russia’s largest truckmaker, and a major state media corporation.

IAN CAMERON


Father of David Cameron

The father of Great Britain’s current Conservative Prime Minister died in 2010, having amassed a fortune in smart investments. According to the documents, “Cameron helped create and develop Blairmore Holdings Inc. in Panama in 1982 and was involved in the investment fund until his 2010 death.” Blairmore was valued at $20 million in 1998 and was promoted to investors in brochures as “not liable to taxation on its income or capital gains.” The promotional literature added that Cameron’s fund “will not be subject to United Kingdom corporation tax or income tax on its profits.”

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Analysis: The security implications of the Panama Papers

First Post H

IntelNews: Aside from their immediate shock value, the Panama Papers reveal the enormous extent of tax evasion on a worldwide scale. This unprecedented phenomenon is inextricably tied with broader trends in globalized finance-capitalism that directly threaten the very survival of the postwar welfare state. National intelligence agencies must begin to view offshore tax evasion as an existential threat to the security of organized government and need to augment their economic role as part of their overall mission to protect and secure law-abiding citizens.

THE BACKGROUND OF THE LEAK

The source of the Panama Papers leak —the largest in history— is apparently a single individual who contacted the widely respected German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung over a year ago. After receiving assurances that his or her anonymity would be safeguarded, the source proceeded to provide the paper with what eventually amounted to over 11.5 million files. They include company emails, banking transaction records, and files of clients that span the years 1977 to 2015. The source asked for no financial compensation or other form of reimbursement in return, saying only that he or she wanted to “make these crimes public”.

Faced with the largest data leak in recorded history, the Süddeutsche Zeitung reporters contacted the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which is the international arm of the Washington-based Center for Public Integrity. With ICIJ acting as an umbrella group, the German reporters were eventually joined by 370 journalists representing 100 news outlets from 76 Q Quotecountries. On Sunday, following a year-long analysis of the data, the reporting partners began publishing revelations from the Panama Papers, and say they will continue to do so for several days to come.

THE ROLE OF MOSSACK FONSECA

The documents are from the internal records of Mossack Fonseca, a law firm headquartered in Panama City, Panama, with offices in 42 countries. The company is one of the world’s most prolific registrars and administrators of shell companies in offshore locations. It has created more than 300,000 shell companies throughout its history, most of them in offshore tax havens like the British Virgin Islands, Cyprus, or Guernsey. Its clients are offered the ability to incorporate a generic-sounding company and headquarter it in an offshore tax haven. In exchange for an annual fee, Mossack Fonseca provides the company with a sham director and shareholders, thus concealing the true owner and actual beneficiary of the business.

The power of the leaked documents is that they reveal the actual owners of 214,000 offshore shell companies managed by Mossack Fonseca. The long list of names includes dozens of current and former heads of state, as well as hundreds of politicians, public figures and celebrities. Many of these individuals have failed to declare their earnings from their shell companies in their annual tax Q Quotestatements, which means they have not been paying taxes in their country of citizenship or residency. Thus, there are now thousands of Mossack Fonseca clients in over 100 countries who are preparing to face the legal consequences of tax evasion.

SECURITY IMPLICATIONS

Equally importantly, however, the leaked documents reveal that Mossack Fonseca’s clients appear to include at least 33 individuals and companies that are involved in organized crime or have close contacts with terrorist organizations. This sheds light on the increasingly disappearing line that once separated illicit activities such as tax avoidance and tax evasion, from money laundering, organized crime and terrorism. This phenomenon is assisted by unscrupulous companies like Mossack Fonseca, which act as anonymizing platforms for wealthy celebrities, criminals and terrorists alike.

The leak also shows the extent to which national governments have been unable to stem the tide of unfettered finance-capitalism, which today threatens the stability and cohesion of developed and developing economies alike. Moreover, the sheer scale of offshore capital funds, which, according to one expert, amount to as much as $32 trillion, threaten the economic security of nation states and must be viewed as an existential threat to the ability of states to fund public expenditures though taxation. The political arrangement that led to the creation of the postwar welfare state is today being directly threatened by the inability or unwillingness of organized states to monitor the largely unregulated flow of capital to offshore tax havens.

Today, entire economies, including much of southern Europe, the Balkans, as well as Latin America, are crumbling under the fiscal weight created by mass-scale tax evasion and organized crime. Organized criminals are now actively working closely with the banking sector, thus creating even more opportunities for money laundering and other financial illegality on an unprecedented scale. The Süddeutsche Zeitung revelations demonstrate that the line that separates legitimate economic activity from the rogue underbelly of global capitalism is exceedingly thin. It is high time that Western intelligence agencies viewed this worrying development as an asymmetrical threat against the security of law-abiding societies and began dealing with offshore tax havens with the same intensity that they have displayed against terrorist safe havens since 9/11.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis

 

 

 

The FBI, DoJ, Hillary and Lawyering UP

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Just this week, the FBI sent a request to the U.S. State Department to stop all server and email investigations and the State Department has complied. Formal letters have been dispatched the key Hillary people for scheduling upcoming interrogatories with regard to the server and emails.

*** Clinton Aide Abedin ‘Terrified’ of What May Be in Emails

What is quite interesting as you continue to read the American Thinker piece below is the matter of Beth Wilkinson. Who is she that she seems to know just about all the heads of the various departments at main Justice?

 

DailyCaller: The wife of CNN political analyst David Gregory is the attorney representing Hillary Clinton’s ex-aides in the FBI’s investigation into her private server usage, raising concerns of a possible conflict of interest.

It was reported by Politico on Friday that Gregory’s wife, Beth Wilkinson, is representing four of Hillary Clinton’s former state department staffers in the FBI’s investigation of Clinton’s use of private email. Wilkinson is a former federal attorney who prosecuted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.

Gregory, who used to be the host of “Meet the Press,” has joined CNN as a political analyst, and most of his work will be done on their morning show “New Day.”

Politico’s report doesn’t mention that Wilkinson is Gregory’s wife until the fourteenth paragraph. They also mention that according to FEC records Wilkinson is a donor to both the Clintons and the Democratic Party.

CNN has not returned multiple requests for comment on whether Gregory will be discussing Clinton on TV and whether viewers will be made aware of this conflict.

Gregory is not the first TV newsman to be connected to Clinton. MSNBC host Chris Matthews’ wife’s congressional campaign is largely funded by Clinton donors.

Four Hillary aides hire joint defense counsel

AmericanThinker:

Politico yesterday revealed that four of Hillary Clinton’s aides – not including Huma Abedin and Bryan Pagliano – are using the same high-powered, well-connected D.C. lawyer for their counsel as they face likely FBI questioning over their role in the private server/classified email and possible criminal referral.  The group includes chief of staff Cheryl Mills; her deputy chief Jake Sullivan; Heather Samuelson, also on Mills’s staff; and Philippe Reines, who served as Clinton’s spokesman at State.

The lawyer in question, Beth Wilkinson, has served as a high-profile Justice Department prosecutor, in-house general counsel for Fannie Mae following its scandals (for undisclosed but likely substantial compensation), and a partner in two top law firms prior to setting up her own boutique law practice in January of this year.

As Politico notes:

The united front suggests they plan to tell investigators the same story — although legal experts say the joint strategy presents its own risks, should the interests of the four aides begin to diverge as the probe moves ahead. (snip)

Hiring the same attorney allows Clinton’s advisers to have one gatekeeper for most of the DOJ’s inquiries — and it likely indicates that they expect to offer substantially similar testimony if they’re questioned. Lawyers are barred from simultaneously representing people who may have conflicting interests in an investigation, or who would say something negative or potentially legally harmful about the lawyer’s other clients, experts say, although some such conflicts can be waived by the clients.

Thus, the aides’ decision to use a so-called “joint-representation” or “common-defense” strategy suggests the staffers believe they’re in this together and are unlikely to turn on each other.

On the other hand, if one of the aides ends up in criminal jeopardy as part of the probe, choosing a “common-defense” strategy could mean trouble for that staffer, who may need to say something adverse about his or her attorney’s other clients.

“The premise of employing the same counsel is that they believe there is not likely to be a situation where they start pointing a finger at one another to save their own skins — or perhaps at Secretary Clinton,” said Dan Metcalfe, founding director of the DOJ’s office of information and privacy. “And there’s a sense that if one of them goes down, they all go down. It shows they think they can coordinate the defense to everyone’s benefit.”

Metcalfe, now a law professor at American University, called it an “optimistic approach”: “They must believe prosecutors don’t have that much.”

It is unclear when the agreement for joint counsel was made.  Senator Grassley quizzed Wilkinson late last year about who is paying her for serving as counsel and was rebuffed on the ground of client confidentiality.  It is clear, however, that Hillary Clinton would be the outside party positioned to benefit from a unified set of answers among her aides, and also in a position to pony up the large sums a lawyer like Wilkinson would charge.  But if and when any differences in responses appear in testimony, the aides will face heightened peril, as their common attorney will face a conflict of interest in whom to protect.

It was necessary for the Department of Justice to grant exemption from conflict-of-interest rules for this arrangement to be legal.  That seems to indicate that the DoJ is not neutral in the case, something Joe DiGenova sees clearly:

DiGenova questioned why the DOJ would greenlight the arrangement in the first place, arguing that it “presents an amazing conflict of interest” and allows for coordination of stories.

“If it’s a serious case, you don’t run the risk of having all sorts of collusion between people — it’s just not done,” said diGenova. “If the department has accepted that, that tells me they’re walking down the line of not bringing a case, because they’re not serious if they have accepted that arrangement … They’ve thrown in the towel.”

The DOJ declined to comment.

If all goes as Hillary plans, this arrangement will surely benefit her.  But if the FBI has information that the four people do not anticipate and they give conflicting answers, then the arrangement could blow up on her.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/04/four_hillary_aides_hire_joint_defense_counsel.html#ixzz44ovyf93z
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World’s Elite and the Panama Papers

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The Putin Connection: Cronies of Russian President Used Shady Companies to Funnel $2 Billion

Suspect payments made by Putin associates were in some instances designed to pay bribes, leaked documents suggest.

Haaretz: On February 10, 2011, an unknown company by the name of Sandalwood Continental Ltd. of the British Virgin Islands lent $200 million to a similarly unknown company from Cyprus by the name of Horwich Trading Ltd.

The following day, Sandalwood transferred the rights to collect the loan payments, including the interest, to Ove Financial Corp., another mysterious Virgin Islands firm. Ove paid $1 for the rights.

But the money trail didn’t end there.

That same day, Ove transferred its rights to collect the loan payments to a Panamanian firm, International Media Overseas, for which it too paid $1. Within 24 hours, the company traversed three continents, two banks and four other firms — on paper — and virtually obliterated the traces of the loan in the process.

There were many reasons why those who carried out the transaction might have wanted to disguise it. One, and not the least of the reasons, was that the money trail came too close to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Rossiya Bank of St. Petersburg, an institution whose chairman and majority shareholder has been dubbed one of Putin’s “cashiers,” set Sandalwood up and directed the flow of cash.

International Media Overseas, which ultimately received the interest payments on the $200 million, is controlled — on paper — by Sergei Roldugin, one of Putin’s most longtime friends, a classical cellist and the godfather to Putin’s elder daughter.

The $200 million loan was one of a dozen transactions that collectively involved at least $2 billion discovered in the files of Mossack Fonseca involving individuals or companies with a connection to Putin. They were part of a Rossiya Bank undertaking that gained indirect influence over a major shareholder in Russia’s largest truck manufacturer and secretly amassed a large numbers of shares in an important Russian media outlet.

Suspect payments made by Putin’s friends were in some instances designed to pay bribes, perhaps in return for contracts or help from the Russian government. From secret leaked documents, it can be assumed that a considerable portion of the loan was originally received from a bank in Cyprus, a large portion of which at the time belonged to VTB Bank, which is controlled by the Russian government.

A Kremlin spokesman has told the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists he will not respond to questions on the matter. In a public statement on March 28, the Kremlin said that the ICIJ and the newspapers that work with it are preparing a misleading “information assault” against Putin and his associates.

Is this story collaborated? Yes it is, there are more details.

Guardian:

What is Mossack Fonseca?

It is a Panama-based law firm whose services include incorporating companies in offshore jurisdictions such as the British Virgin Islands. It administers offshore firms for a yearly fee. Other services include wealth management.

Where is it based?

The firm is Panamanian but runs a worldwide operation. Its website boasts of a global network with 600 people working in 42 countries. It has franchises around the world, where separately owned affiliates sign up new customers and have exclusive rights to use its brand. Mossack Fonseca operates in tax havens including Switzerland, Cyprus and the British Virgin Islands, and in the British crown dependencies Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man.

How big is it?

Mossack Fonseca is the world’s fourth biggest provider of offshore services. It has acted for more than 300,000 companies. There is a strong UK connection. More than half of the companies are registered in British-administered tax havens, as well as in the UK itself.

How much data has been leaked?

A lot. The leak is one of the biggest ever – larger than the US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks in 2010, and the secret intelligence documents given to journalists by Edward Snowden in 2013. There are 11.5m documents and 2.6 terabytes of information drawn from Mossack Fonseca’s internal database.

Are all people who use offshore structures crooks?

No. Using offshore structures is entirely legal. There are many legitimate reasons for doing so. Business people in countries such as Russia and Ukraine typically put their assets offshore to defend them from “raids” by criminals, and to get around hard currency restrictions. Others use offshore for reasons of inheritance and estate planning.

Are some people who use offshore structures crooks?

Yes. In a speech last year in Singapore, David Cameron said “the corrupt, criminals and money launderers” take advantage of anonymous company structures. The government is trying to do something about this. It wants to set up a central register that will reveal the beneficial owners of offshore companies. From June, UK companies will have to reveal their “significant” owners for the first time.

What does Mossack Fonseca say about the leak?

The firm won’t discuss specific cases of alleged wrongdoing, citing client confidentiality. But it robustly defends its conduct. Mossack Fonseca says it complies with anti-money-laundering laws and carries out thorough due diligence on all its clients. It says it regrets any misuse of its services and tries actively to prevent it. The firm says it cannot be blamed for failings by intermediaries, who include banks, law firms and accountants.